This game needs a massive rework

[Not John Malkovich]

A) The cauldron interface is pure spew.
Drag and drop to put stuff in is fine. There's no reason for it to be a D+D instead of a click, but whatever, minor.
Dragging stuff OUT of the cauldron requires fishing out the specific item, and all the items clump into one overlapping spot. You can do it, sure, but why have the User Interface be a chore?

B) Once you have two or more cauldrons, you don't have an obvious way to select the other one.

C) Performance is ridiculously SLOW for a game that has cheap mobile level graphics. It's installed to an SSD and the entire installation image fits in 1/16th of this PC's Video RAM, and yet, it's got lots of loading pauses. What are you **** doing? Mining Crypto in the background?

D) Perceived performance is slow due to overly animated effects. Moving back and forth from the shop to the basement plays a slow transition, THEN a loading screen.

E) There's no indication as to *why* the potion you just brewed isn't fit for the competition, or for a customer request.
In week 2 ALL - not some - of the customer requests start requiring specific traits. Aside from the absurd difficulty wall, there's a major communication gap. You do get a blue box highlighted on the request... but no real indication wtf that means. It's only after you make stuff that should fill the request and go "wtf isn't this allowing turn in"? and notice.
The required traits need to part of the quest presentation. "Please make {This Thing} with {These Effects}. The tiny icons are **** meaningless.

F) You need to give the player something for winning the competitions. Sylvia can be demotivated - that is fine. Demotivating the player? No.

G) The time limit discourages exploration but the dialog doesn't give clear paths towards what you need to do as far as unlocks go.
In the 1st week many thing unlock via TIME... but you do have to unlock many things via the "hang out / gift / upgrade" options.
So the game trains you to think "everything important is going to unlock when it is supposed to, without interaction". Except, you know, it doesn't.

Lots of other items need polish, but I'm done.

[Max's Dark Room]

finally someone else is talking about the competitions awarding you nothing is horrible. bless.

[Marlile]

A) the game tells you, you can double-click to add or remove items from cauldrons. very easy

B) i was personally confused for all of two minutes, then it was pretty obvious how to access the other cauldrons/equipment

C) these aren't mobile level graphics, the animations are crisp and frankly beautiful. this is the salt talking. breathe. lmao

D) an option to speed up or remove the animated transitions would be great, agreed.

E) the customer requests are bad and absolutely need a rework, the correct traits should offer extra gold, but shouldn't be an absolute requirement. it's too much of a hassle at all stages of the game and isn't worth the effort. I disagree that the tiny icons are meaningless, though. the game could definitely do better explaining what they all mean or what to pay attention to, but in general when you mouse-over the competition potion, it's gonna tell you what potion you need, and what level that potion needs to be. super straightforward, I don't think complaining about that is reasonable.

F) this was definitely one of the biggest things that almost made me quit. After the first competition, sure, I lose all the gold, fair enough. But when I was "winning" amounts of 30k+ while not pocketing any of it at all, it definitely felt a bit demotivating and like the game wasn't really appreciating the effort it takes to get ready for the competitions in the early stages of the game, when your ingredient pool is limited and your deck is bad.

G) I just disagree with this... the game makes pretty clear early on that interaction unlocks things for you. You meet Quinn, suddenly you have access to an ingredient shop. You meet Muktuk, suddenly you have a cauldron. Of course in the tutorial portion of the game you'll receive these things for free, in their due "time," but obviously as the game progresses you can return to those characters you've already met, and spend time hanging with them to unlock more stuff in their wheelhouse. I can't really see where you're coming from with this when a minimum of one single hang-out with any character would unlock a card, thus demonstrating that the relationship stuff is helpful for progression. Plus the dialogue is always ramming the competition stuff down your throat, I don't think it really could've been any more clear.

[Vengyr]

I don't get the competition part. You unlock more difficult adventure areas, expeditions, tools, items, potion recipes. You even get the first two opponents you beat as interactable NPCs, once you assert your superiority. Idk what else could you want.

[Capybarasan]

Also with so many cauldrons that we can get it would be great to be able to save recipes that we can just drag and drop into a cauldron and all the ingredients for it drop in at the same time. If you have them all.

[dan.w]

I think one thing I'd really enjoy having in the cauldron interface is something to sort ingredients. Currently it seems like things are sorted from newest to oldest. I'd really like once I've filtered ingredients by colour, to also be able to sort from highest value to lowest value.

[Kind Buddy]

E) You can get an enchantment from the lady you have to beat in week 1 to give you fake bonuses for one day, then turn in the potions. They'll accept them. I haven't seen any requests with more than 1 requirement, but I'm only on week 2, so it's possible they exist. It also seems like she only offers 3 random enchantments a day, so maybe you could get unlucky and not be able to enchant the one you want. I'm not sure.

[[FvN] Var]

Tbh most of your criticism can be summed up as "I have not paid attention and lack the ability to put 1 and 1 together, so now im salty"

Like, my man... the game literally tells you double-click works on the ingredients. Not figuring out how to swap between cauldrons...i recommend turning your monitor on and looking at it. Not figuring out, why the potion you brewed can't be handed in... ??? how much clearer do you need the requirements to be laid out? It actually just requires two braincells to put their capacities together to figure out "hey, there are these boxes under ingredients and potions... some of them are lit up, hey, that could maybe mean, that i require this one to be ticked".... then you add the information ontop, that some ingredients have good or bad traits, which raise / lower the potions price by 5% each, WHICH THE GAME TELLS YOU ABOUT, and a third braincell might chime in and be like "yo, these boxes do be important to look at indeed." This part is literally "the round thing goes into the round hole" - levels of difficulty to understand.
And unlocking stuff.... the game also tells you, that you want to interact with other characters to learn from them.. the ONE turn-in unlock literally tells you as a reward, that you UNLOCK a character....mate, please.

Cant talk about performance issues, have not noticed anything in any of the runs i did.

The only criticism, that i woudl somewhat agree in here, is on the custom orders. Not because of their "difficulty wall", but because they are bloody pointless after week 1. You can sell the very same potions they want for the delivery in the shop for more profit.

[Egamer]

The competition complaint seems silly. Your reward is getting to continue the game. The nice thing is that you don't have to budget for your debt so any money you earn in the shop can be spent freely.

[aquatorrent]

I agree that there is no way to clean out the cauldron in one click. I hated the loading screens too - i tend to forgot things easily between them and had to reload my save several times to make sure i didnt miss something.

Other than that, i have to disagree with the whole thing. It only take me a few mins to figure out how to switch between cauldrons (although some kind of tutorial will be good), i understand the trait in custom order right away (although i wish they dont have them to make it easier), you get something for the competition but it got taken right away, and you need to figure out how to spend time yourself so it doesnt make sense to have the game teaching you how

[Water]

If anything, my main problem with the game is that the RNG buckshot leaves me not wanting to pick it back up. My main source of income was sight potions using metallic slime, but then metallic slime suddenly gained an extra magimin value and now I can't craft them steadily. I also barely have any ingredients to use to make the required potions for the third challenge, let alone a high enough grade to assuredly win after bartering is done. I feel like the warrior adventures have a bit too much going on to reliably clear the latest dungeons as you get them, and the rewards for previous tier dungeons are lacking at that point. Basically, it seems like the whole game is spent trying my hardest to keep up with all the stuff going on, then I get hobbled to a nearly fatal degree along the way.

[aquatorrent]

i agree there is a bit of rng in the third challenge since you need to get a material with high E magimin type to craft the stamina potion.

as for the potion, just find 2 material types that has high magimin value in 1-2 types and craft the potions based on that (either pots or tunics). don't mind the bad traits since you can mask it with the closer card from roxanne. even if you can't use the closer, it doesn't really matter since you still get some profit from it.

as for the dungeon adventure, you don't have to feel obligated to finish them all. just assign each adventurer to defeat 2-3 enemies in each area (depends on which one that they can clear easily) and supply some 1-2 pots to them. i just brewed minor pots with 4x basic A and 4x basic B ingredients (the berry and plant) in one cauldron once i got 4+ cauldrons and give them the pots daily. the minor pots will be upgraded to common with that formula and it's more than enough to farm mats (and fuel for upgrades) like that.

[0rutyna0]

H) Multiplayer? Highscore table?

[Capybarasan]

Originally posted by 0rutyna0:

H) Multiplayer? Highscore table?

How do you see multiplayer working in this game?

[0rutyna0]

Originally posted by Capybarasan:

How do you see multiplayer working in this game?

What do multiplayer management games look like? Several players make their moves, compete for resources and markets, whoever earns the most money wins.